People who watched television news this weekend might be confused into thinking that Monday’s “emergency” meeting of Governor’s Office policy advisers is significant – as if some sort of budget solution will emerge now that the governor has gotten serious.

An unnamed entity sent a letter of intent to buy the East Valley Tribune last week, but a second potential buyer has made it clear that he intends to make a bid for the newspaper in the near future. Steve Hadland, CEO of the Santa Monica Media Company, said he is still pursuing the purchase of the Tribune.

Most Freedom Communications employees probably have never heard of the company’s MBO bonus program, but the higher-ups know all about it. The program paid out more than $3.7 million to Freedom’s top executives during the past year, not to mention ...

It’s a familiar story these days: Top executives reaping disproportionately large salaries and mind-boggling bonuses while executing poor business strategies and laying off hordes of employees. It’s happened in the finance industry, construction, automobile manufacturing, computer software and beyond. But now, we can count the newspaper industry among them.

Freedom Communications has failed to muster an acceptable offer from anyone interested in buying the East Valley Tribune, and it’s planning to shut down the Mesa-based newspaper at the end of the year. It’s been a tough road for the employees, ...

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio received a high approval rating in the most recent Cronkite/Eight poll. Sixty-one percent of Maricopa County voters said they approve or strongly approve of his job performance. Thirty-four percent disapprove or strongly disapprove. It’s one of those ...

It took about two weeks, but Sheriff Joe has figured out where he got the list of criteria to detain illegal immigrants. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office released a statement earlier this week that noted he will continue to use a set of indicators - including an inability to speak English, unusual appearance and the location where people are stopped - to detain people who might be illegal immigrants.

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office just released the following statement. Rather than bloviate, I just pasted it below. But I will say it's one of the first times I've seen his office admit a mistake.

"You said some nasty things about me. I take it that way." That's how my conversation with Sheriff Joe started. He was offended that I had said on television that he was trying to use a non-existent federal law to justify the continuation of his crime-suppression sweeps.